Lindens Launch 100 Pathfinding Sims

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gone viral on Second Life's main grid. A new technology called pathfinding embeds AI in SL servers. On over 100 sims, AI characters can navigate intelligently among avatars, terrain, walkways, and obstacles, with behaviors such as pursuit, wander, evade, patrol, and navigate to location.

Any of these behaviors can be invoked with 2 lines of Linden Scripting Language (LSL)… to automatically move mesh or classic prim objects… possibly replacing hundreds of lines of vehicle animation code. Is this just a reduction in user code or something more? Yes, much more.

Pathfinding is a new mobility ecosystem. Pathfinding can calculate all feasible pathways across land and prims (e.g. bridges), generating a navimesh (picture 1). Pathfinding characters (aka Non Player Characters or NPC) use AI searches to find navigable pathways to their target avatar, object, or location. Throw up a roadblock? No problem, they will find another way round. There is enough randomness and simulated nervousness in the solution, that NPCs have distinctively organic motions.

Yeah, but what about lag? Everyone asks. Okies. I ran stress tests with my animated NPCs on the Snack Sandbox regions. Kitty is a 4 legged animated critter that walks. Funky Munky is a humanoid NPC that strides and does a funny skit. I took baseline performance stats, then starting rezzing wandering NPCs simwide; hundreds of them.

As I watched the lag numbers; a startling result! At first, only 2 numbers trended with added NPCs, Physics Time went up and Spare Time went down. All other numbers flatlined... no effect. Just over 100 NPCs and Spare Time hit zero; the first noticeable lag. Amp that up to 200 NPCs, and yes, we are driving frame time up as well, but linearly, not aggressively. Even more surprising, virtually no NPCs crashed. After rezzing 200 kitties, I only lost 2 and the population held steady for several hours. Conclusion: multiply your Spare Time by 5 and that's how many animated NPCs you could rez on your sim without any noticeable lag.

That means, Lindens created a very reliable and efficient infrastructure, but only for NPCs. Of course, all this AI is beta test, and sim crashes happen often outside the sandbox. You know this when you can't move or chat… you've got crash! The sim does an auto-rollback, including your inventory; and sometimes you relog to a place you left hours ago! Time Warp! Coolies!

The Lindens should be congratulated for these achievements... but that's not enough. User generated NPCs should support animations, in other words, NPCs with moving limbs that walk and gesture. I used the very popular prim animation script by Ferd for my NPCs. My teaching NPCs worked for weeks… umm… until Wednesday, when Lindens rolled out a new server beta that broke all my prim animations and everyone else's. Ugh! Fix that bug!

To date, Lindens test pathfinding with the default cubes that you rez when you start building (Picture 2). This testing scales to other non-articulated NPCs such as rubber duckies, plastic bunny toys, and snails. Clever use of flexiprims gives you a few more options (Picture 3). Let's see, hmmm, NPC can only travel on land and float but not animate… maybe ghosts? daleks? spaghetti monsters?

To fill the vast depopulated regions of SL with engaging content, citizens of SL need animated NPCs… i.e. NPC people and realistic, animated NPC critters. I'm just saying... pathfinding has tremendous potential. Linden Prayers that it lives up to expectations!

Picture 4: Any, Lorca Linden, Maestro Linden, and Falcon Linden, "the genius behind pathfinding AI. Dude! ... You ROCK!" 

The Pathfinder Users Group (PUG) meets Thursdays at 4pm SL time on Aditi test grid at the PathTest megaregions (use the Map to find us!). Chat log from this meeting: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Pathfinding_in_Second_Life/2012-05-03


Any1 Gynoid

Original published on CNN 

Winners Announced in UWA Open-Art Challenge

Any1 Gynoid, noted lately for her articles on the “Occupy” movement in Second Life, recently attended the University of Western Australia’s 3-D Open Art Challenge as they announced their winners this Sunday December 11th at 6 AM SL time. A total of 59 art exhibits were elgible for a 100,000 Linden prize, with 24 competing in a seperate non-scripted contest. In the “MachinimUWA 4: Art of the Artists” film contest, 83 machinimas were judged as well.

By a single point, the winner of the Open Art Challenge was Misprint Thursday’s “Digital Glove.” Described in Prim Perfect as a “complex and thoughtful work,” one was asked to wear a HUD to get the full bennefit of this exhibit that was a combination of audio, motion pictures, and static objects. Taking a look at it, I personally do not know how to describe it other than I haven’t seen anything like it before. Misprint also tied for 5th Place in “Paranormal Frottage.”

"I am so honored to have two spots in the top 10 of the year...I am amazed at the potential of the medium and look forward to seeing it progress. I am very thankful for the work that Jay Jay, FreeWee and the judges put into this-it is no small task. We have a world of people and possibilities here and it continues to move me. So, thank you."

Those wanting to hear more from Misprint can do so at the Christmas Expo in the Silver Bells sim on Friday when she is interviewed.

Second place went to “In Dreams” by Blue Tsuki. This exhibition showed a sleeping area full of beds, but instead of sleepers, the beds had various objects on them. Of coming in second, Blue spoke, "Misprint is very desring, I don’t mind losing to her(smile). But then there were so many deserving that I am so surprised." Blue recieved 75,000 Lindens.

Third place was “The Chasm” by Oberon Onmura. This was a simple exhibit of two wedges back to back to each other with a small gap in between. On each of the peices lay an avatar, humanoid with a monocolor skin, it’s AO causing it to reach out to the other. For those going about the UVA exhibition and see two avatars on your radar next to one another, it might be this exhibit. I say might because avatars can crash. And sometimes they can fail to rezz, such as when I came across it. Oberon recieved 40,000 Lindens. As shown when Second Life Newser looked at his Burn2 exhibit, Oberon’s work sometimes involves the use of avatars as art.

Fourth place went to “Strange Plant: Ugliness and Beauty” by Claudia222 Jewel, whom recieved 30,000 Lindens as her prize. Tying for fifth were “Paranormal Frottage” by winner Misprint Thursday and “Excerpts from Realities” by Glyph Graves. Seventh place went to “Not Everything is Black & White” by Fushia Nightfire. Tying for eighth place were “Fantasia En La Sombra” by Romy Nayar and “It’s Raining in My Heart as It’s Raining in the Town” by Cherry Manga. Five exhibits tied for tenth place, “Harmonies in C Great” by Artistide Despres, “Three Little Turns and It Goes Away” by Josiane Sorciere, “The Dock Spirit” by Scottius Polke (designer of Lunamaruna), “Venustrap” by Claudia222Jewel, and “Shattered” by Ginger Also.

In the Non-Scripted competition, first place went to “Shattered” by Ginger Alsop, whom was awarded a 15,000 Linden prize. Second place was awarded to “You Can’t Touch Heaven” by Paleillusion Resident, who recieved 10,000 Lindens. Third place went to “99%” by Harter Fall, whom took home 5,000 Lindens. Harter spoke, "Receiving this award is such an amazing honor. I never thought I would win this prize, especially with such an political installation. I think even the rich ones of us understand they don´t belong to the 1%."

The Peoples’ Choice Award went to “Small Piece of Hell” by Rebeca Bashly, " I am very surprised and pleased. My goal is to make people happy with my pixels."

In the MachinimUWA 4 competition, the winner was “Welcome to the Other Side” by Tutsy Navarathna, “Many thanks to the organizers. UWA competitions are now setting the benchmarks for the creation of Visual 3D and Audio-Visual media in Virtual Worlds.
I am very proud to be part of this adventure! UWAMachinima IV is a great achievement in terms of the number of entrants and the high quality of the films being produced. In only three years or so, machinima filmmakers have emerged as an undisputed artistic force in Virtual Worlds...And this is just the beginning! Thank you, all.”

Tutsy recieved a 60,000 Linden prize. His machinima can be seen here (Not Safe For Work): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm4XY49gdzc&feature=player_embedded . Second place went to “Artwashers” by Friday Siamendes, and third went to “Art of the Artists” by Fushia Nightfire. They recieved 40,000 and 30,000 Linden prizes respectively. The Special Award for Emotion went to “Yeah” by Hypatia Pickens, and the Special Award for Breaking the Barriers was awarded to “Transformation Virtual Art on the Brink” by L1aura Loire/ Dr. Lori Landay.

Lori spoke, “My film suggests that virtual art can be seen as a step towards what augmented reality might bring to art experience in the future, but as usual, I explore that idea playfully, with a wink at questions about how imagined, created, and actual realities intertwine, and what it might mean to break the barriers between them. It is a privilege to explore those connections with the artist communities of Second Life, especially as we've been brought together by the UWA.”

When awarded fifth place in the Non-Scripted competition for “Marionette,” Haveit Neox commented, "The UWA Art Challenge 2011 comes to an end, but it's left its imprint grid wide for the artists of SL. Jayjay conceived of the challenge, and against all odds in an otherwise scattered Second Life, he managed to nurture an expansive and stimulating place for artists to congregate, share their work, discover each other, and further their visibility in SL. An impossible task, unless you happen to be Jayjay. I am grateful for this award. My thanks to Jayjay, FreeWee, and all those who made the UWA Art Challenge a reality."

The exhibit can still be seen at UWA Winthrop (208, 128, 248)

Contributor: Any1 Gynoid

Sources: Prim Perfect, UWA Blog

Bixyl Shuftan

Fear Lurks Redzone Menace

Once upon a time, a man invented a Toilet HUD. Flush! Gulp! LOL And invented the so-called "EVIL" - "DIABOLICAL" and EXTREMELY OVER-RATED SL security device RedZone.

How did this man succeed in pissing off most everyone in Second Life?... his RedZone customers? ROTF LMAO... privacy activists? Linden Labs? and even ordinary SL citizens?

Here's how: RedZone (RZ) is a crappy product... overpriced... and WAY OVER-SOLD.... RZ pretends to be a revolutionary SL land security system, that claims to detect so-called Alternative Avatars (Alts).

It doesn't really. It's a kluge. By deliberately invading people's privacy, RedZone supposedly collects Internet addresses from SL viewers via music and media connections. But due to network address translation, that Internet address could be shared by a million ISP customers! DUH! Not Alts dummy... same ISP!!! Hello AOL! You got mail! lol

Not only that, Toilet HUD genius pulled his marketing right out of Saddam Hussein's playbook... claiming to be dangerous.... wildly fabricating sales figures... pretending to have sold over 20,000 RZs... 6000 in fact on a day when nobody shopped at his store! Except a happy camper on Deluxe Toilet (comes with free HUD) lol... See http://no2redzone.wordpress.com/

And we are led to believe that Toilet HUD guy has collected 5 million Internet addresses! OMG! I didn't know AOL had that many! lol

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Scylla Rhiadra for her thoroughly researched exposes on RedZone.

To protect ourselves, disable your SL media and music streams (Ctrl P Audio&Video tab), and wear this HUD called GreenZone. Buy for free. See "How to Play SL Music Outside SL" below.

In Picture 2, you see GreenZone doing it's job: ALARM! Means RZ haunts this dreadful place. I got RZ alarms at Bad Girls, RAWR store, and the RP sim Radiant Gardens. Places we should all avoid like the plague. I can imagine if your SL business is an a**hole magnet, and your customers are SL a**holes, you might feel a need for a hoax like RZ. You deserve each other! Enjoy! lol

I went to two dozen popular places in SL, music clubs, stores, lots of places... Guess what? No RedZone!!! Any place that uses RZ sucks! Hands down! Boycott their businesses! Join the SL group Green Zone Users for more info.

BUT DUDE! RZ is a bummer! What you really need is THRONE! YEAH! Picture 3 shows Lord Ivan the Terrible THRONE! YEAH! It's like Toilet HUD Revenge! You ride on the backs of Philip Linden slaves and go round vaporizing and ejecting mere mortals! Bwuwahahahah!

Throne and other disgusting inventions of an infantile mind... Ring of Burning Death, Very Paranoid Bug Detector, and our favorite "As Seen On TV" product, the Deluxe Toilet HUD (Picture 1). Lure in unsuspecting SL campers with offers of money... then make rude noises and orbit their butts! Dude! We could have fun ALL day long! NOT!

This article is satire. Orbiting and ejecting are extremely violent acts. Fine for video games if you please. But SL is not a game. Bada bing. Read: SecondLife is Not a Game!»

Also, help fight RedZone and other privacy invading products by voting for this JIRA: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-24746?

HOW TO PLAY SL MUSIC OUTSIDE SL

LISTEN on iTUNES, REAL-PLAYER, Windows-Media-Player, or WINAMP - SL music programs are based upon Internet streams...

In Viewer 2, (a) Ctrl-Alt-D to open Advanced Menu, (b) If you are in Viewer 2.4 or later... Advanced > Show Debug Options, then in the box type adminmenu, set the radio button to True and OK (c) Advanced > Show Develop Menu and (d) Develop > Show Admin Menu. Then do World > Place Profile > About Land... Select-Copy the music URL off the Sound Tab... and paste it into your favorite media player (outside SL on your PC).

In Viewer 1 (or Phoenix & 3rd Party Viewers), click on the Region Name in the menubar (top of client)... Media tab... sometimes you will see Music URL there... IF NOT, Ctrl-Alt-D to open Advanced/Admin menus, then Advanced Menu > View Admin Options (or Ctrl Alt V), now click on the region name (top menu bar) then go to Audio (or old Media) Tab. Select and copy the "Music URL".

Paste the Music URL into you PC media player. Shortcut Ctrl U for iTunes and Real Player (CMD U on Mac)... then click in the text box and Ctrl V to paste (CMD V on Mac).

P.S. This video is impossibly funny sendup of RedZone... Ummm LOTS OF F WORDS... Caution! If you want a great laugh you have to watch it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqW0A0PLhQ0

(Originally posted on CNN)

Any1 Gnoid